The Restless Kind
by Luxuride
Summary: Multishot, set during various points in the campaign. This is an attempt to fill in some of the blanks between the seasons with angsty, sweet, and simple moments shared between Joel and Ellie - because as perfect as I think the Last of Us is, I just need more of these two. Joel/Ellie friendship.


**THE RESTLESS KIND  
****Rating: T (May vary from chapter to chapter)  
****Summary: Multishots, set at various points during the campaign.  
****Pairing: Joel/Ellie friendship  
****Warning: Spoilers for **_**the Last of Us**_**, specifically the end of the Fall segment. If you don't want to be spoiled then don't read.  
****Disclaimer: I don't own **_**the Last of Us**_**, it belongs to the creative geniuses at Naughty Dog. I also took some of the dialogue from the scene before it fades to black.  
****A/N: With this fic I'm hoping to fill in some of the gaps between the seasons and just random spots in the story. It won't necessarily be in order. I've got a couple of ideas already, but if you have something you'd like to see me expound on, let me know in a review or a message.****  
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* * *

**SHELTER**

It all happened so quickly, she didn't have time to think or to panic. They had been so focused on finding some kind of clue as to where the Fireflies had gone that they had let their guard down. The prospect of hunters showing up and surrounding them had been the last thing on their minds, but she and Joel held their own – or at least they had until Joel and one of the scraggly looking survivors had taken a tumble out of the second story window. Now, with Joel leaning heavily against her, his breathing ragged and his shirt sticky with blood, she didn't have the luxury. She was running on sheer instinct and kneejerk reaction_, _and somehow they managed to make it out of the university alive, even if just barely.

They cantered until they were a safe distance away from the college, and when Ellie risked a glance over her shoulder, she was relieved to find that they hadn't been followed. She tried to tune out the occasional grunt that slipped from Joel when Callus crossed a particularly rough patch of broken road or jumped over fallen debris, but the wet coughs that were becoming more and more frequent were impossible to ignore. The ball of anxiety in her gut only tightened when she saw him pull his fist away, flecked with blood.

She swallowed nervously and noted how weak he looked sitting slumped in the saddle. She leaned to the side a little, trying to peek around at his injury. Crimson had bled through his shirt and had trickled downward, staining the top of his jeans as well. They needed to stop, needed to get that bleeding stop. She needed him to _be okay_.

"I think we can stop," Her voice was quiet. After a moment of silence, she tried again. "Joel, I think we're safe." She said a little louder, glancing back behind them again just to be sure.

She stared at him, waiting for some form of reply, but one never came. Hesitantly she reached out to touch his shoulder, but just as her finger tips brushed the worn material of his jacket, he began sliding sideways. "Joel-" She warned, but there was nothing she could do to keep from falling. He slipped from her grasp and landed with a sickening thud on the ground. "Ah, shit," She swore under her breath as she snagged the reigns, pulling back so that Callus would stop. She scrambled from her spot just behind the saddle, desperate to get to him.

She fell to her knees beside him, ignoring the feeling of the asphalt biting into her knees, and she struggled to help him back up. "Joel – here," she said, placing her hands behind his head. His deadweight made fear wash over her, and her heart hammer so hard she could hear it in her ears. She swatted at his chest, well above his wound, trying to garner some kind of response – a sound, some kind of movement, _something_.

"Get up, get up, _get_ _up!_" She chanted, her voice getting increasingly more desperate each time. His face was so pale and lifeless… "Joel?" She cried in desperation. She leaned forward over him, so close that she could feel the roughness of his beard against her cheek. His shallow breaths were barely audible, but they were there. It was a glimmer of hope, and she latched on to it.

"You've gotta tell me what to do," She pleaded, shaking him again. "Come _on_. You've gotta get up!"

Joel was alive, but she had to get him somewhere and tend to his wounds, _fast_. "How the hell am I supposed to get you back on that horse?" She breathed as she sat back on her haunches. She squinted up at Callus, who was snorting impatiently with a puff of fog, reminding her just how cold it was. It had flurried off and on since they had been riding, but judging by the grim clouds over head, the snow had set in for the night. It was only getting harder.

She stood and brushed her hair back roughly. "There's gotta be some way," She murmured as she looked around for some kind of answer. If she could just get them off the road at least, then maybe no one would bother them. The last thing she needed was someone coming along thinking that they could take their shit or worse. She squinted and noticed a once quaint one story home that had seen better days. Still, it was a roof over their heads. _Maybe there, _she thought.

Bending down, she grabbed Joel under the arms and began heaving him backwards towards the shelter. There was no gentle way to drag him, and she grunted from the effort. The house, once painted either white or cream was splotched green, likely algae or mold. It was set far back from the road, surrounded by knee high grass yellow grass, victim of an earlier frost, and grown up shrubbery, but it was worth a shot. By the time she'd made it halfway down the yard with him, she was both swearing and sweating from the effort. She pulled him to the side near some of the bushes that lined the wooden fence that ran along the side of the property. She dropped his arms and and her hands found her knees as she fought to catch her breath. Her lungs ached from the cold.

When she finally straightened, she pulled her pistol from the waistband of her jeans and checked how much ammo she had. "Shit," She swore, shaking her head. _Not much_. Most of it had been used up in the fight at the University. If there were hunted or infected inside, she didn't stand a chance.

Five minutes later, she'd crept through every room in the house, and there was no sign that anyone had been there in a very long time. It wasn't all that different from the other houses they'd rummaged through. The wallpaper was torn and falling from the walls in strips, where there actually were curtains they were blotched and faded from the sun, photographs lay scattered along shelves and the walls, and the carpet was dingy and half dry-rotted. But the roof was mostly intact, and the walls would keep the cold wind off of them. It'd certainly do for the night.

Tucking her gun away, she hurried back outside to get Joel. The snow was coming down a little steadier, and the nip of the cold snowflakes just made her work that much harder. It wasn't until Joel was lying safely on the living room floor and she had checked his breathing again that she felt she could go back out for Callus. She opened the garage door for him with a grunt, cringing at the sharp pain in her side. She didn't have time to dwell on it as Callus brushed by her, the horse's hooves clicking on the concrete floor. She pulled the door shut again, letting it hit harder than she intended to, and Callus sidestepped and snorted nervously. "Sorry, sorry." She breathed, trying to ignore the burning in her lungs. "I'll bring you some water after I take care of Joel." She promised. She patted him on the neck and the hurried back inside trough the backdoor.

"Ok, Joel, I think naptime should be about over." She muttered as she knelt down beside him. It took some maneuvering, but she finally got his backpack off and began looking through for bandages and alcohol. Much to her dismay, there was none of the latter. "Seriously?" She breathed as she swiped a grimy hand across her brow. _Maybe there's some in the kitchen._

She thoroughly checked every cabinet in the kitchen, and she felt and overwhelming urge to scream when she found none. But instead she sucked in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and returned to Joel. She'd have to make do with what she had and then pray that she - or him if he felt up to it – could go scavenging tomorrow.

She pulled back his coat and then unbuttoned the faded plaid shirt he'd been wearing since the leaves had begun changing. She cut the solid shirt underneath with her switchblade, and with a grimace, peeled away the sticky material from his wound. It wasn't pouring blood anymore, but that wasn't much of a consolation. The skin was torn and jagged, and Ellie felt her stomach twist painfully. It needed stitches, but she didn't know a damn thing about sewing. "Wake up." She pleaded him, reaching up to touch his shoulder. She got no response.

It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, second only to pulling him off the damn thing he'd impaled himself on to begin with. By the time she was finished her hands weren't as shaky as they had been in the start, and she was surer of her ministrations. They weren't the straightest stitches, no, but Joel wasn't in a position to complain. The last of the bandages were used to dress the wound, and she rebuttoned his shirt and zipped up his jacket. _Hopefully that'll keep some of the heat in_, she thought. Building a fire just wasn't a possibility.

She looked down at her hands and arms which her stained with his blood, and she felt her stomach tighten uncomfortably. She refocused on him, leaned close, and whispered, "Come on Joel, you've gotta pull through this. I need you." But sitting there staring at him, pleading with him to wake up… It was only making panic bubble up in needed to keep herself busy. She produced a blanket out of her own backpack lay it gently over him.

With a final glance down at him, she hurried to the kitchen to wash her hands. Under the sink she found a large pot that she filled with water, and she took it out to Callus. He whickered softly, and she couldn't stop herself from throwing her arms around his warm neck and burying her face in his hair. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she managed to hold them at bay.

* * *

She spent the rest of the evening sitting on the couch near him, peeking out the window through the boarded slats. Now that things were quiet, she realized how exhausted she was. It had been both a physically and emotionally tiresome day. There had been the let down with the Fireflies and Joel's fate was still up in the air… On top of that, her side still hurt where one of the hunters had nailed her with an iron pipe just before she'd put two shots in his chest. At the time she'd been so focused on Joel, she'd hardly noticed. Now that things had finally slowed down and her adrenaline had worn off, she could feel the deep ache. She wondered how a cracked rib felt, and she wished she could ask Joel.

Her gaze wandered to him. Seeing him so vulnerable felt so wrong. In the beginning, shortly after Tess had been bitten and subsequently died, Ellie had worried that they'd never make it to Tommy's. She had been scared that something would happen to Joel and that she'd be stuck out in the wastes alone. After a tense battle with some knife wielding thugs or after he had crept forward to take down some Clickers, silence was almost scarier than the monsters. She would wait with abated breath for him to come back, and if he took too longer than she deemed necessary, she would timidly ask into the dark, "_Joel?_" But he'd always return, more often than not splattered with someone else's blood and with a grim expression on his face. "It's alright, c'mon," He'd say, and she believed him -_ trusted_ him - more than anything else.

Somewhere along the way, she'd started to see him as untouchable. Maybe he was smarter than the others; he saw through their tricks because he'd been there too, and that unnerved Ellie if she wondered about it too much. His movements were powerful and deadly, and sometimes the brutality caught her off guard, but never had she been afraid of him. She only felt safety in his presence. He'd protected her and carried them this far, and as she stared over at his limp body and pallid face, it seemed surreal to her.

She swallowed thickly and blinked back the hot tears that stung her eyes. She would not cry, but she couldn't do _this_ either. She couldn't sit and worry about him until she made herself sick.

She bent forward to dig in her backpack for something, anything, to take her mind off of the situation, and she hissed at the sharp pain in her side. "Damn it," she muttered. Once she found what she was looking for - the joke book she'd taken from the library outside of the checkpoint in Pittsburgh - she leaned back into the couch's arm. "It's a shame you're not awake to laugh at my jokes, Joel." She murmured.

She flipped to a random page in the book and read the first joke she saw, "What do you call a song played in an automobile?" She hesitated, peeking over at him. Some part of her hoped that he'd answer. "A cartoon." She added finally. She shook her head a little. "Come on, that was an easy one."

She flipped the page. "What did the water say to the boat?" This time, she didn't bother looking up before she answered. "Nothing, it just waved."

As she skimmed down the list, she had to cringe at how bad some of them were. She could picture Joel shaking his head, not even bothering to comment on them. "Oh, okay, what about this one – what did the grape say when it got stepped on?" Despite everything, she giggled to herself and said, "It let out a little wine."

"That might be the corniest joke I've ever heard – and I've heard a lot of your jokes."

Ellie nearly jumped out of her skin at the gruff sound of his voice. It was rough from lack of use, but it was Joel's voice none the less. She tossed the book aside and dove to her knees on the floor beside him. "Joel!" The relief that he was awake and talking was staggering, and without her permission a few tears of relief leaked free. She draped herself as carefully as she could over him in an attempt at a hug. "I'm glad so glad you're awake." He grunted, and for a second she feared she might be hurting him, but then slowly she felt one arm come around her back to give her a gentle squeeze.

She pulled back reluctantly so that she wasn't crowding him. "You scared me," she accused him before swiping at her eyes with her sleeve. ""Don't do that again." She smacked him on the leg to punctuate her statement.

"I certainly didn't mean to." He drawled, sounding sheepish and maybe even a little embarrassed. She felt his gaze sweep over her, his hazel eyes squinting in the dim light. "Are you hurt?" He asked, voice thick and laced with concern.

She should have told him about her side, but she couldn't bring herself to. He didn't need to be worrying about her; he did enough of that already. What he needed to be worrying about getting himself well. "I'm okay," She answered, squeezing his arm reassuringly. "Just… get better okay?"

She received another grunt in answer, but it was enough. She didn't know what circumstances morning would bring, but even as Joel drifted back to sleep next to her, she felt a sense of calm that she hadn't felt all day. Soon she followed after him, lulled to sleep by the reassuring rise and fall of his chest.


End file.
